I started mastering Kingmaker some months ago. I started using Ultimate Campaign rules for the kingdom. Initially the kingdom turns were interesting, with events and difficulties along the way. Planning was necessary and money was sometimes a problem.
Then the kingdom became too big. One Kingdom turn was 40 minutes of play and nobody liked it. We started using the spreadsheets from this forum (thanks!) to save some time. Money was not a problem anymore: I had to houserule that the party had to use the major part of the money they could subtract from the kingdom treasure to sustain their lifestyle. An ingame solution to overcome infinite money.
Slowly all the kingdom attributes exceeded kingdom checks, so that only a 1 could mean failure. Kingdom events became a formality (this is what makes me think the kingdom is unbalanced now). We started to use Ultimate Battle rules to balance the unbeatable troops of the kingdom, an army that may defeat entire countries. Still unbeatable, maybe, but at least I can create better armies for the events that are going to happen very soon. We converted the spreadsheet, going full Ultimate Rulership too (which I think is slightly more balanced and realistic than a vanilla UCampaing).
Here is my players' kingdom as we are starting Blood for Blood. We are following the rules, I can confirm. How do these number compare to your kingdoms? Too strong? Comparable?
Hexes: 101; Population: 71770
Control DC: 129; Treasury: 2400 BP
Economy: 196
Loyalty: 158
Stability: 189
I run Hargulka's monster kingdom. It doesn't seem to me that opponents would have stopped them.
They basically built every hex improvement they could in each hex, they have one big city with 5 districts and 3 smaller cities (1 district), Varnhold included. hex improvements with a lot of farms help them with consumption, but their strength, in their opinion, are the buildings that boosted their stats to these levels.
Result: Kingdom is not a challenge anymore. I'm curious to know if big kingdoms out there have similar characteristics.
It's difficult to summarize the entire kingdom, but if you want to look at it I uploaded a copy of our spreadsheet from the latest session here.
How did they get 2,400 BP in the Treasury? And is that how much they are generating or are you not dividing the Economy Check?
I don't think our game has even generated that much BP since we founded our Kingdom!
Where is it being stored? Surplus Consumption Reduction being stored in Granaries? Do they have a Banking district just full of Banks?
You might need to create some sort of Treasury Storage to securely hold all that loot. Something like a Bank can only store up to 14 BPs (half its cost), a Castle can hold 10 BPs, a Cathedral 5 BPs (half a Castle), a Mint 15 BPs (half its cost), a Palace 20 BPs (twice a Castle), Keeps/Forts 5 BPs (half a Castle).
With a massive Treasury like that, I'd even ask my GM for an automatic 10% loss on all stored BP each month due to outright theft, with maybe a +1d20 % more loss each month for the Thieves Guild ( which I also head).
Queen, the result of an income phase in this case is:
( dice(7) + economy(196) ) / divider(4*) + income from terrain improvements (87) = 138 BP.
*we are using taxation edicts from ultimate rulership
It took about 8 years of reign to get to this point. They can even throw away food in excess. Armies are not counted in the version I posted, but you can see that even with them, when they are in reserve, their consumption is 0. (-55 is an error of the formula)
Even if I put some limits to their treasury (and I think it would be weird to add such a rule at this point), their kingdom statistics are so high they can build anything. To limit their power I should rewrite important sections of Kingom rules because, as written, they perfectly allow this kind of kingdom. And I feel this would not be well accepted in the middle of the campaign, after all the work they have done, especially after learning so many new rules from Ultimate Campaign/Rulership/Battle. I feel they power played the kingdom, actually, but… it is quite easy to do so. Is it possible nobody optimized the reign up to this point?
Galeazzo, I can't open your spreadsheet:(
So I really can't see what's out of whack, all I can think of is..
1. Are their cities built sensibly, with no min/maxing?
2. Armies in reserve require Granaries if your using Ultimate Battle.
3. You can cut down on population using Ultimate Rulership, we even don't multiple cities by the number of districts since everything is new. A smaller population reduces troops available in Ultimate Battle.
4. An awesome army should have a lot of Consumption, if they can't keep it in reserve it can suck up huge amounts of BPs.
5. I read somewhere that 1 BP = 1d3 wagon loads of supplies, you seriously need to enforce some kind of BP storage system for 2,400 BP, that's just insane!
6. Are they growing so much that they've ticked off the nature-lovers.
7. If need be, you might want to just choose what events happen, in order to remove some of their excess.
OK, got access to your spreadsheet
Looks like they put a Fishery in every hex with water.
Foundries only improve 1 Mine.
Buildings that generate Fame also increase Consumption.
You really should use Jason Nelson's Errata of no asterisk(*) on the Farm improvement, so that you can only have a Farm, or a Mine, or a Quarry, or a Sawmill in a hex. You have 101 hexes with 61 Farms, 26 Mines, 19 Quarries and 20 Sawmills, for 120 Improvements.
You also have 5 cities, some games allow the 4 big improvements with a District some don't.
You only have 2 Granaries, so if your using Ultimate Battle, you can only have 2 reserve armies, in those 2 districts.
Looks like they put a Fishery in every hex with water.
Yes, they put a fishery in every hex with a river.
Foundries only improve 1 Mine.
I will fix this, thanks!
Buildings that generate Fame also increase Consumption.
I don't know this rule, could you be more specific?
You really should use Jason Nelson's Errata of no asterisk(*) on the Farm improvement
I probably should have done this before, now it is a bit late to do it. I may put some limits to their accumulated treasury. I admit cities have been initially built with min/maxing, now they just do whatever they want, see this post for fun.
Let me explain better my situation: I almost feel embarrassed by these statistics while I expose them, but I don't see this excessive kingdom as "bad". Kingdom rules had a success in my case: players are having fun. Two of them are really invested, they also meet out of the game to catch up with some skipped kingdom phases when I want to flash forward during a session. Others partecipate passively, but in general they like ruling a kingdom. They really like to have unbeatable scores, a perfect kingdom where they are absolute rulers. On the GM side, these rules are a complete FAILURE because they don't allow me, as GM, to create balanced challenges for the players on the base of their kingdom statistics. Those numbers, that should represent their strength, are actually a useless appendix of rules with the only purpose of gratifying the players. In my game real kingdom challenges are created ad hoc by me, with political parties, interests, demands, favors. Kingdom events are not part of the real challenge, so I'm not too worried to keep statistics balanced, apart from some sort of realism — they don't appear to have to be balanced in the first place.
So the real question is: what is the meaning of Kingdom rules? Are they a way to simulate kingdom building — keeping it detached by the real challenge? Or are they a way to misure the players in a different area than the usual one, a system that the GM can use to challenge them like the Challenge Rating system for monsters? How does it work with your game?
As I was saying in another thread , I think the rules as written are inherently built in a way that keeps them away from the "real game" (i.e. playing an adventurer hero, the reason why we play Pathfinder and not Civilization).
Of course, individual DMs can find tricks to incorporate more RP in the kingdom building, but I feel that it's at the cost of investing a lot of prep work and that it's a perpetual fight against the rules that WANT to be out of the real game.
After 12 kingdom turns, my players needed only a 3 or 4 on their d20 to succeed on all kingdom checks and events and get at least 10 BPs of income each month, and that was not by min/maxing. They did made suboptimal building and hex choices, but they just understood (as their PCs would have because it's logical and they're not stupid), that it's better to expand quietly but surely while building their capital city.
If you are using Ultimate Rulership, the Fame entry is covered on pg22.
I believe the purpose of the Kingdom rules is to allow the players to build a nation, and then they will need to fight to keep it.
The Kingdom rules provide the canvas and the resources that the players will fight on and with.
If the players have unlimited resources, then there will be no challenge in it for anyone. I would just use something like in SimCity, if you use the cheat code for more money, then watch out for Godzilla and earthquakes all over.
In our game the real goal is to make a Kingdom that we can play in 30-50 years after the end of KM. A place where our new PCs grew up in and at most are distantly related to our current leaders. We'll be able to explore ruins that our PCs are making now.
That's why I really think you need to rein in your players, otherwise there won't be any fun in it for anyone. Just hit them with 13 Months of Plagues to remove the excess.
#1 A Plague of Dragons .....
That's why I really think you need to rein in your players, otherwise there won't be any fun in it for anyone. Just hit them with 13 Months of Plagues to remove the excess.#1 A Plague of Dragons .....
#2 A Plague of Lawyers
#3 A Plague of Mimes
#4 A Plague of Halflings
#5 a Plague of Halfling Mime Lawyers.
Ok I fixed some flaws and now consumption is higher. Feel free to take a look.
Note that armies' consumption in the Overall sheet is handled manually and that number represents reserve armies; the income phase in the same sheet already subtracts consumption from the total. One of the best things I'd love to throw at them is a long war, so their enormous armies can drain their huge treasury